"She NEEDS to sort out her priorities," Ron said, exasperated. Harry was silent and Hermione imagined him nodding in agreement.
She leaned against the door, frustrated. Of course, Ronald Weasley, magical family for generations, had nothing to worry about if he was expelled. He would go home to the same magical world with the same magical people. But me….
Hermione shook her head, not daring to think about it. She ran her fingers along the stone walls of the corridor to the girls' dormitory and tried to concentrate on breathing properly. She loved the way the magic tickled her fingers and the way she could positively feel the powers she held. Her smile was small but evident when she sat on her bed and thought of the spells she could cast and the potions she could brew and the plants she could tame.
The other girls were asleep but Hermione didn't need to wake them up to know they didn't understand how she felt. To leave this magical world, to be expelled back to the muggle world with her muggle parents, was unbearable. She meant what she had said—it was worse to be expelled than to be killed.
She loved her muggle family, to be sure. But she had never fit in. She was sure Harry understood, but perhaps having lost so much to death already he prioritized survival higher than his magical education. Running small fingers along the spines of the books she kept neatly tucked beneath her bed, she pulled out Hogwarts, A History and began reading. The words flowed into her and when she finally went to sleep, she dreamt of the founders and passages and spiraling staircases and magical enchantments.
When Parvati Patil woke up the next morning, she pointed a laughing finger at the frizzy girl laying in bed holding a textbook and the other girls snickered, too. As they left the room, Hermione kept her eyes tightly shut.
I will not cry. She told herself, remembering the sound of them laughing at her. She was sure they were laughing at her. They were always laughing at her.
Ron and Harry were eating together when she finally made it down to the Great Hall, but she didn't bother trying to join them. She was certain they didn't want her company, as it seemed no one at Hogwarts wanted her company.
It seems, she thought, skewering a sausage link with more force than she meant to, that I will have to fight for my place in this world. No matter how much I want it, it doesn't seem to want me.
She didn't know what a "mudblood" was but in the years to come she would stand up against the title. She didn't know she would ACTUALLY be the smartest witch of her age but she knew she would try her darndest to be. She was determined, as she watched the students from wizarding families struggle with basic spells, to be the very best. Because if she wasn't, this world wouldn't keep her.
X_X
Hermione Granger didn't cry when the war broke out and she couldn't finish her schooling because she realized finally that the wizarding world was bigger than education and her abilities extended beyond the classroom. She was a witch, through and through. She was the smartest witch of her age!
Ron wrenched the chain from over his head and cast the locket into a nearby chair. He turned to Hermione.
"What are you doing?"
"What do you mean?
"Are you staying, or what?"
"I..." She looked anguished. "Yes - yes, I'm staying. Ron, we said we'd go with Harry, we said we'd help -"
"I get it. You choose him."
"Ron, no - please - come back, come back!"
The memory swam in front of her face and she cried. She cried for the war. She cried for loss and the corruption of the magical world. She cried for the Weasleys and the Potters and the Grangers who didn't know they were Grangers, and everyone she'd known. She was the smartest witch of her age but she couldn't stop a war. Ron. Oh Ronald. He'd always annoyed her but she'd grown to care so much about him. She'd thought he cared for her.
Oh well. She supposed it was her lot to want things that didn't want her—everything from a magical world to a magical boy with dirt on his nose.
But then he came back. And the war ended. And the smartest witch of her age was a wife, and a mother, and the head of the Department for Ethical Treatment of Magical Creatures, and then she was the Minister for Magic.
And the smartest witch of her age was part of a magical world, with a magical boy and magical children.